


Stockholm's Storyteller

by miss_coverly



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Gen, Mystery, Sad, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8311393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_coverly/pseuds/miss_coverly
Summary: When something is broken, you fix it. And she'll fix this broken boy - even if it's the last thing she'll ever do. A macabre twist on Holly being the narrator of the books. AU.





	

The office floor appears to be fully carpeted. But, upon further inspection, one can see that the over-sized rug is merely covering up a floor of cracked tiles and chipped wood. Trouble Kelp knows this because his boots create a dull _thud_ with each footfall. Then again, that is what everything sounds like to him nowadays.

Dr. Jerbal Argon is seated at his desk. "How are you, Major?"

"Well... I'm here, aren't I?" Trouble gives the gnome a sad smile. "How is she?"

"Please, do come in and have a seat."

He ushers Trouble into his small office, then tries to straighten up some stacks of paper in front of him. On the paneled wall behind him, Argon's few medical certifications and accomplishments are framed proudly. The only electronics in the office are a lamp, a telephone, and an archaic computer that he's had smuggled down from above-ground.

You see, Dr. Argon is not actually a high-profile psychiatrist, and the J. Argon Institute is nothing but a small mental clinic. It resides on the outskirts of Haven. It is also about the only option for the mentally ill who are enemies of the LEP.

But those are just some of the things she misled you about.

Trouble plants himself in the folding chair and waits. Argon pulls a yellow folder out from under a precarious stack and starts thumbing through its content. The two men sit in silence. Minutes tick away on Trouble's visor clock.

"Argon," he says, "has she gotten worse?"

Argon doesn't look up from his notes. "Oh no. Over the week, the captain has actually become much more lucid." Even his grim demeanor cannot hide the spark of joy that comes with studying with this fascinating new patient.

Trouble blinks. "I'm sorry?"

"Well, normally patients who have gone through that amount of trauma completely seclude themselves. At least for the first few months. But she's been terribly talkative. Friendly, even - when she's not in hysterics, of course."

"Oh... that's good, then." But Trouble's frown is distinct as he stares at his boots.

"Something wrong?" asks Argon.

Trouble meets the gnome's eyes. "It's just that... well, she was never a captain, sir."

"She wasn't?"

"She always wanted to be one. But she failed out of the Academy after the first year."

"Well, I'll be."

Trouble's shoulders stay pushed back and professional, but the light dims in his brown eyes as he remembers. "She was too reckless to be trusted in the field - that's why she failed out. She didn't care to learn about the rules or bureaucracy. She'd just... strap on a pair of wings and go. That's why this all happened, I guess."

* * *

Another week has passed. Once again the major sits across from the doctor.

"I can't thank you enough for sending over the incident report." Argon grabs a ruled piece of paper out of the yellow folder. Notes are scribbled painstakingly along the lines. "It's truly peculiar, listening to the captain's account of events."

"I told you. She's not a captain."

Argon eyes him. He continues, treading more diplomatically. "During her initial evaluation, she told me that she'd escaped her kidnapper; I chalked that up to a hallucination, P-T-S-D and all that. But she also described in great detail the chaos she caused while she was kidnapped. It all contradict the official report. Trolls, gold, a time-stop... a human boy, even."

Trouble heaves a seething breath. "Well, she certainly _was_ kidnapped by a human. But _Fowl_ is no boy." He almost spits the words. He tastes their bitter heat on his tongue. "He's bothered the People for years, but never before to that extent."

"Yes, it's quite a shame." Argon leans back in his chair. He steeples his fingers under his chin. "There's just one thing I'm having trouble understanding. Why'd she go to Dublin? She wasn't authorized. The Ritual site there had been dried up for ages, and it certainly wasn't business-related. And yet, she went anyway - for Frond's sake, she _stole_ a pair of wings... what was pulling her there?"

Trouble narrows his eyes. "And you think I know?"

"Well, you're the only visitor she's had in two weeks." Argon smiles knowingly at the elf. "Call it a hunch."

"... we grew up together," says Trouble plainly. "Went to the same primary school. She was always fascinated with the Mud People, Frond knows _why_. She thought they couldn't be so bad... thought she could fix them."

Trouble smiles, but there is no happiness there. "Her dream was to fly, to see what it was like above-ground. But she... she never got to fly."

"Well, she did get to see what it was like above-ground, at any rate."

Trouble stares at the wall. "It wasn't worth it."

* * *

Argon leafs through the yellow folder, which grows thicker everyday. "I was hoping you could answer some questions for me, Colonel. Congratulations on the promotion, of course."

Trouble gives him a brief smile. "Well, life goes on."

Argon finds the specific page which has eluded him thus far. "The strangest thing has happened." He surveys the notes - hasty transcriptions of therapy sessions. "At first, I thought her stories were a coping mechanism. They'll wear off in a week or two, I thought. And yet, not only has she maintained her version of events..."

"What, Argon?" says Trouble. The impatient tapping of his new steel-toed boots creates a sharp _clank_ , rather than a thud.

"Over the past few months, she's invented _more_ of these... well, they're _fantasies_ , really. She's virtually unaware of her current state. It's as if she's continued her life - in her head, of course. All the subjects from the kidnapping are there. LEP figures, too. Some of them, she couldn't have talked to more than once in her life... but they play integral parts in all the memories she recalls to me, if you will."

Trouble avoids the doctor's eyes. "Does she... talk about me at all? During her more lucid moments."

Argon studies the elf in front of him. He decides that perhaps the most broken members of the People are those _not_ thrown into hospitals. "A little bit, although you're not usually a vital part... eh, sorry. That's actually why I asked you here today. To clarify the captain's connection to the main players in her imagination."

When Trouble does not bother correcting his use of "captain," Argon references a new page and continues. "She says one of her best friends was the centaur Foaly. Is that true?"

"Eh, it's very unlikely. Foaly kept to himself while he worked in Haven. Very few of us saw him on a regular basis - she'd never have met him more than once."

"I thought so. And yet, he contributes heavily in nearly every adventure she recounts."

"She must've read about him in the paper, and her imagination did the rest," snaps Trouble. He scowls at this other life she'd wanted to lead. That he'd never known about until now. The other friends she'd wanted.

"She says her mentor in the LEP Recon unit was Commander Julius Root. But obviously she was never _on_ LEP Recon. So how would she have known Julius?"

Trouble runs a hand through his cropped hair. A grim expression squints his eyes and creases his brow. "Commander Root administers the first year exams. And he taught our 'Intro to Flight' class. He and Holly never got along, but _Frond_... she..."

"Wanted his approval?"

Trouble meets Argon's eyes. "How'd you know?" he asks skeptically.

"It's all there," Argon replies simply. "In her head. He's the one that failed her, then?"

"Mhmm."

"Out of curiosity," Argon prattles on with careful calculation, "who did end up being the first female captain in Recon?"

"That was Captain Koboi."

"Of course." Argon gives a bemused smile. It is entirely in juxtaposition to Trouble's agitation. Perhaps that's why they are still able to sit across from each other, discussing this mad girl, without going mad themselves. "And the convict, Mulch Diggums? That ring a bell?"

Trouble gives a throaty laugh; it's the first time he's laughed in months. "Frond, she mentions me once in months. But Mulch is a _major_ player. I don't know what I else expected."

"So she knew this Diggums character somewhat well?"

"Hardly," mutters Trouble. "After the Academy, the best LEP job she could get was trash duty. Old food and goblin droppings in the magma chutes. Mulch was a dwarf who bummed around those parts - hardly a criminal, though I'm sure he talked about himself as if he was. He _maybe_ helped her throw some trash bags in the incinerator. Once."

Argon scatters check-marks over his notes, until he reaches a name that has proven to be enigmatic.

"Most disturbing of all, oddly enough, is her attachment to Artemis Fowl himself." Although Argon has made these notes, trying to decode their meaning makes his head fog up. "Her mind has turned him into a young boy. More than that, she talks as if she's _reconciled_ with him after the kidnapping. She considers him her best friend, of all things."

Trouble's jaw hardens. "Who'd want to _befriend_ the Mud Man who ruined her life?" he spits. "Who made her a traitor to the People, against her will? Made it so that she lost tons of LEP gold, and fairy secrets? And so now she has to stay in this _hell-hole_ , instead of a legitimate hospital."

Argon lets this remark slide, if only because he fears the Colonel is too fragile to handle much else. "It's the most bizarre form of Stockholm's Syndrome I've ever seen," he says. "Constructing all of these hallucinations, these _fantasies_... it's her way of making sense of the experience." He tosses the paper back onto his desk and leans back in his chair. "Whether it's real or not, the fact is that's become the purpose of her life. Fixing this evil man... it's her way of correcting what happened to her. She's fixing herself, really."

Trouble chuckles coldly. "You should write a book, yeah?" he taunts.

Argon's expression is serious. "No, but _she_ should."

* * *

They watch her through the two-way mirror. She sits in an old cushioned chair in the corner of the living unit. She clutches a pencil and scribbles furiously onto a piece of paper that's perched in her lap. Her eyes stay wide open, darting around the room and then back to the page sporadically.

Argon is bent over his yellow folder. Trouble studies several loose pages as well; but the words on these pages are not written in Argon's scrawl. The handwriting changes irregularly, although it is all clearly by the same writer. At times, it is neat and unassuming. Then it grows larger and sweeping. Hasty. Passionate, even - only to morph into tiny, crooked sentences. As if the writer would prefer no one be able to read these words.

"This is all she does? All day?" asks Trouble.

"More or less, when she's able to keep herself still long enough. It seems writing everything down on the paper is providing her with a sort of catharsis."

"She's writing fiction, that's all." Trouble wants to tear the pages to shreds, get rid of this reality that she prefers. That he would even prefer, at this point.

"Oh, not just writing it. It's incredible." Argon cannot hide his sick fascination. He's almost given up on trying to hide it. "Sometimes in our therapy sessions, she's almost perfectly coherent. As consistent, vivid, as someone speaking about their _real_ life... you'd never know what she'd been through. She _believes_ herself - and more than that, when she tells you about her adventures with the Mud Boy... she makes you believe her. She's a terribly persuasive speaker."

"Of course she is," says Trouble, his lips becoming a grim line. "I wouldn't have given above-ground clearance to just any civilian." The lines of his high cheekbones cast shadows over most of his face. They make it look like he's drowning in something. Remorse, perhaps.

Argon frowns. In the silence, he makes a note all the same.

"She talks like she's seen him just yesterday," he muses. "Fowl, that is. I have it written down multiple times - always, she tells me, 'I think he's really going to be good this time.' With complete confidence... ah, you should hear it."

"I'll pass." Trouble stares at the paper, and his eyes threaten to burn holes through it all.

He notices an odd characteristic of the writing. "Argon, look at these lines." He points at several sentences; the writing is completely regular, until suddenly it trails off in a long, jagged line. Seemingly for no reason. "What happened here?"

"Ah, those. A panic attack in the middle of writing. She loses control of her fingers, obviously."

"Does that happen often?" Trouble puts a tentative hand to the glass. Watching.

"It depends on the day. And the 'memory' she's writing down, really. True to form, whenever she's imagined Fowl in some sort of danger... she can't handle it. I've had to sedate her several times."

" _Sedation_? That's necessary?"

"To keep her functioning, yes. See, I've been conducting some tests. I believe the cause of her... ah, mood-swings-"

"You mean madness?"

"If you'd put it so bluntly." Argon rolls his eyes. "Either way, it seems to be magic-related. The magic was part of her chemical makeup. Now that it's been forcibly removed, her poor nervous system can hardly hold itself together anymore."

"And there's no way to reverse it?"

Argon shakes his head. "There's nothing _to_ reverse. If he'd have turned her fully into a human, there'd at least be a biological component to analyze. You can un-drain a lake if you have something to fill it with - which we don't, but that's beside the point. This... you can't un-drain a lake that's been _removed completely_."

Trouble's jaw drops. " _What_?"

"She no longer has the _capacity_ to hold magic. She's dry to the bone, falling apart... but her body isn't crying out for magic - if anything, it's crying out for _him_."

"You're kidding me." Trouble looks as if he's going to vomit. Or sob.

"I don't know _how_ Fowl did it... or even _what_ he did."

"It doesn't matter," says Trouble, "because it'll be the last thing he everdoes. Maybe the Fowl in her mind is invincible, but... well, we'll see about the real one." And he walks out of the office.

* * *

They watch her through the glass, although their vision is now impaired by a large crack in the two-way mirror. She is not sitting in her chair today, but has sunk to the cold stone floor. She is curled in a fetal position. Clutches her head in her small hands. Her turbulent, rocking form throws violent shadows against the wall, and her sobs pierce the stale, underground air.

Argon and Trouble hear her strained cries of _"Why?"_ and _"How could you?"_. Worst of all is when she whimpers _"Is he okay?"_ as she battles the sedative. Trouble stares helplessly at the crack in the glass. He tries to avoid looking at her writhing form.

Argon's disheveled lab coat clings to his hunched, tired frame. He clutches the yellow folder, as if it's a comfort to him. "Are you d'arvitting _crazy_?"

"Don't talk to me like that-"

"How did you think she would react?" Argon turns to him. "You thought she'd jump up and down, did you?"

Trouble throws up his hands. "I _thought_ it would help... relieve her stress, give her closure... I didn't think she'd..." He trails off, ignoring what he _should_ regret. He has to hold firm; if anyone is going to believe in his actions, it must be him. There's nothing else to be done.

"Oh _yes_ , of course," Argon mocks him, "I'm astonished that she didn't _celebrate_ when you told her you'd _executed_ Fowl in cold blood. And she didn't fling herself into your arms like you'd expected, so I suppose you murdered a Mud Man for nothing. You must be _real_ disappointed, then?"

"You're out of line, Argon," booms Trouble as he jabs a hand into the gnome's chest and shoves him against the wall.

Argon is unfazed. " _Frond_ , you don't know her at all, do you? But you _think_ you do. And she knew that, I think. No wonder she hardly ever mentions you." He knows which buttons to push; he's a mental health professional, after all.

"She's _insane_!" spits Trouble. "Forgive me if I don't put a lot of stock into a hallucinating woman's fantasy of a _sick_ romance with her _kidnapper_." He releases Argon and walks back to look through the glass. It tears a hole in him to _see_ what he's done. To think about _everything_ that is his fault... if he'd never given her that above-ground visa...

The tears he doesn't let escape wrack his body. Argon lays a hand on his trembling shoulder.

"Sometimes I wish she wasn't my patient... I wish she didn't have to stay locked up here, for the rest of her life. What good do I do for her, honestly?"

"You've done more than I could," sighs Trouble. "Writing these stories... it's all that's keeping her afloat." He smiles wryly as he drags a wistful hand down the glass. "You give her paper to write on. The life she's always wanted, that she never would've had. And you think you haven't helped her? At least you didn't kill her boyfriend."

"She never actually said she and Fowl were together," Argon attempts.

Trouble rolls his eyes. "Oh, they were together," he says, drunk on his bitterness. "I can't compete with a brooding, handsome hallucination. So I did what I had to do... I righted what I could."

A minute passes. She's finally lost consciousness and lies peacefully in a heap. They look down at her fragile body. A small casualty of the divide between humans and the People. Suddenly, the casualty doesn't seem so small when they're separated by nothing more than a thin piece of broken glass.

"It's peculiar." For once, Argon's words are not pretentious, only honest. "On one hand, she's lost her entire life. She'll live the rest of her days locked up here - too much of a public blemish to stay in a 'respectable' hospital. A prisoner, more than anything. But now... she gets to live a life she never would have gotten. She's a captain now, even. Was she leaving _that_ much behind?"

"She had me," says Trouble, barely audible. "I wasn't much. I tried to be there, at least."

Argon frowns, but pushes on. "As horrible as this all is... has it all been so bad?"

Without hesitation, Trouble replies. "Yes. It has been."

That was the last time Trouble visited her. Argon wonders if she ever really noticed his absence.

* * *

It is no coincidence that she writes the conclusion to her adventures the next morning, in an emotional fervor. She throws herself into a panic several times over, but manages to get it all written down before lunch. She proudly hands her stack of unorganized pages to Argon.

His chest is heavy as he reads of the Mud Boy who could cheat death - her replacement for the Mud Man who could not. He's fascinated with how she is able to adapt so quickly; how she writes her way out of her trauma. She runs away from anything that could break her.

_She really would've made a wonderful captain._

"Just like she wrote," he murmurs to himself. "When something's broken, she's the one to fix it."

_It's a shame I'm the only one who's read these_ , he thinks one day. _Manuscript after manuscript. Just sitting on top of my desk... these wonderful stories._ _I couldn't let them go to waste, could I?_

* * *

Many years have passed. Today, Argon does not watch her through the two-way mirror - that tool that let him peek in at everything she could've kept hidden. Instead, he stands in the cell with her. With his new income from publishing, he has refurbished the room to look like the Dublin countryside - it's comforting for her, he likes to think.

She sits in her new chair, which is plush and a glimmering gold color. Her breathing is labored, and she is as frail as a leaf in the winter. Without the magic to support her elfin body, she has aged more rapidly than a fairy normally would.

"Hello, Doctor," she rasps as Argon approaches. Her bloodshot hazel eyes won't meet his gaze, and her arms twitch consistently. But other than that, Argon thinks that today she looks more serene than ever before. "What brings you in today?"

"Well," he replies, "I actually have a gift for you." He carries a stack of books towards her. "They're yours. The stories you wrote. But now they've been printed, and bound. Like real books."

"About my... my life, you mean?" she asks, buzzing and stuttering with panicked excitement.

"Indeed!" He hands her the book on the top of the stack. "And you'll be happy to know that the books have been quite a critical success in Haven. Especially with the young fairies... they really relate to, ah, all that you've been through. You're an inspiration to them." Argon knows that this is a stretch of the truth; everyone in Haven believes the books to be purely fictional. A good comedic story for children, if anything. But he figures that it won't hurt if Holly thinks otherwise.

She runs her hands through her cropped hair, pulling absentmindedly on strands. "I'm really glad that my... that my life has inspired the People. I'm just one person."

Argon really looks at this tiny elf for the first time. So small, but she nevertheless holds the power of an army inside her own mind. Weak, but strong. He realizes that perhaps there is one truth in her stories: she herself. No matter what life she's living - real or imagined - she is resilient and strong and optimistic. She takes whatever life throws at her, and when she's knocked down, she gets back up and dusts herself off.

Argon eyes the elf in wonder. "You're quite the fighter, aren't you, Captain?"

"I guess so," she beams; her expression is the clearest he's ever seen it. "Although I couldn't do it without Arty, you know. He keeps me going."

"Does he?" Argon asks simply.

"Mhmm." She chuckles, and it turns into a small fit of coughs and twitching. "You know how he is. But I think he's finally going to be good this time." She runs her hand along the book's cover; it seems to pulsate with her. "He's been trying to do better for me. He's like that."

Watching her examine the book - examine her life - he realizes something. Whether or not her readers actually believe the events took place, they believe in and love her characters all the same. He silently marvels at how remarkable that is. That a certifiably insane woman has the power to not only resurrect an evil man in her mind, but to turn him into a young boy. And to fix him.

_Perhaps that's what the People have found so engaging about her fiction,_ he thinks. _It's her desire to bring good out of the most horrible things... which is all any of us have tried to do. Are trying to do with our lives. The People_ and _the humans. Myself and Trouble. Maybe even Fowl would have too... if she'd gotten to him sooner._

It is the first time in his career that he's seen something like this. Against all odds, Holly Short has wrought something truly beautiful out of her sadness and insanity.

She turns to the first page of the book, and cautiously begins reading it aloud. "Ho Chi Minh City... in the summer... Sweltering by anyone's standards... Artemis Fowl would... would not have... been willing... willing to-" She suddenly breaks off, and her eyes widen. "Artemis. _"_ Her breathing speeds up. With every inhale a sharp, wheezing sound sneaks out. _"Arty_." The book slides out of her lap and onto the floor. "He's... he's gone." She quickly follows it, catching herself face-down with clawing hands. " _He's not here._ "

Argon sees her body convulsing with sobs. The sound is something he'll take to his grave. It's with tremendous effort that he reaches into his lab coat. He pulls out a small syringe and slides the tip into her trembling shoulder. It does its job, and within a minute she has rolled onto her back. "Arty," she whispers, as her red bulging eyes finally fall shut.

Argon picks up the book next to her - not a scratch on the cover or the spine. The irony is not lost on him. He lays the stack of books next to the chair, then leaves the room. Before he closes the door, he looks at the picture that has been painted for him. _By_ him. A limp elf on the ground, swallowed up in luxury and adventure. In a fantasy she never would've fulfilled otherwise - whether she would've preferred it or not.

_When all is said and done, she traded one cell for another_ , he thinks. _One set of circumstances for another. One life for another._

He walks into his office. The first thing he sees is the yellow folder, isolated on his desk, looking positively more golden than yellow today. His hands are heavy as he picks it up. Once and for all, he lets the folder fall into the trash can.

_But she did get to fly. That must count for something._

End

**Author's Note:**

> I feel slightly sadistic after writing this story... but I hope YOU enjoyed reading it, dear readers. Although I'm not sure if this story could ever be described as "enjoyable." Oh well, I thought this would be an interesting concept to play around with... but BOY did it pain me to actually write it - I don't like inflicting pain on Holly!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought. Constructive criticism is always welcomed and appreciated.


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